How are wildfires detected?
OMNR doesn’t use fire towers to detect fires any more. The main way we find a wildfire is by people either reporting it to a local MNR district office, or calling the toll-free number. Many types of people including residents, fisherman and forest industry workers report fires. MNR also uses aircraft to look for fires. We use our system of lightning locators, weather forecasting and fire prediction system to help determine where in the province fires are most likely to occur so we can focus our detection efforts. Private and commercial aircraft also report forest fires to MNR. Fire operations headquarters monitor a VHF (Very High Frequency) channel, 122.9 MHz, to listen for reports of fires.
